


burnout

by wizardsquirrel



Category: Animaniacs
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Gifted Kid Burnout, Non-Binary Wakko Warner, Orphans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27827395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wizardsquirrel/pseuds/wizardsquirrel
Comments: 9
Kudos: 126





	burnout

Yakko’s parents weren’t strict, and they weren’t even bad, they just they had a lot of high expectations.

And he was just a kid.

Wide eyes gave way to eye bags, and juice boxes to energy drinks, staying up until four am for the sake of some stupid project he didn’t care about anyway.

He just needed his parents to be proud of him.

“Yakko, what’re you doing?” Dot asked.

“An essay,” he snapped without looking up.

“An essay? For what?”

“School. Dottie, can you go find Wakko? I’m just... kinda busy.”

“Mkay,” Dot agreed, rubbing her eyes. “Good luck with your essay, Yakko, ‘s kinda late, but if you hurry you can still tell me a bedtime story.”

“Yeah, sure,” Yakko agreed, not listening.

He didn’t sleep that night, not even for a moment. As soon as he finished his essay, he turned to working ahead for the week.

He was going to make his parents proud if it killed him. He had been letting them down. They didn’t say it, but he could tell they were disappointed, hoping their younger children wouldn’t be as much a failure.

He was going to make them proud again. He had to. He needed to.

Later in the morning, he set the breakfast table, and poured three bowls of cereal.

“Wakko, Dot,” he called, “breakfast.”

His siblings practically bounced down the stairs.

“Morning, Yakko,” Wakko hummed.

“G’morning, Wakster. Mornin’, Dottie.”

Dot huffed and crossed her arms.

“Silent treatment?” Yakko asked. “This early in the morning?” Dot turned her nose up at him and he sighed. “What’s wrong?”

“You didn’t tell me my bedtime story last night,” Dot said.

Shoot. That’s what Yakko had forgotten. “I’m so sorry,” he said, yawning. “I’ll tell you two bedtime stories tonight, okay?”

Dot pursed her lips and nodded. “Okay.”

“Let’s get you two ready for school now,” Yakko said.

“I’m ready!” Dot said. “I just need help getting my flower in my hair.”

Yakko held out his hand and Dot handed him her flower. “There,” he said, putting it in her hair and glancing to make sure it was level. “Wakko, are you dressed and ready?”

“Yep,” Wakko said.

“Are you even wearing any pants?”

“Are you?”

“Wakko, I’m always wearing pants. Go put some on.”

“Do I have to? My hoodie’s big enough to-” Yakko glared and Wakko sighed. “-fine.”

Wakko shuffled back up the stairs to put on pants and Yakko grabbed the three sack lunches from the fridge.

“I got pants,” Wakko said defeatedly. Yakko handed them their lunch and Dot hers.

“C’mon, guys, let’s head out,” he said.

The school wasn’t far from their house, and it only took ten minutes to get there on their bikes. “I’ll see you after school, okay?”

Dot and Wakko nodded and Yakko patted both their shoulders. “Have fun at school, and make your teachers’ lives hell,” he said.

“We will!” Dot and Wakko said.

Yakko headed off for his first class.

About halfway through, the intercom buzzed, and the teacher answered it. “Hello? I- oh. I see. Yes, I’ll send him right away.”

“Mr. Warner,” the teacher said, faltering, “please head up to the office.”

“Someone’s in trouble,” one of the kids taunted. Yakko rolled his eyes and grabbed his stuff as he headed out the door.

It wasn’t that uncommon for him to be called up to the office. Chances were, one of his siblings’ teachers had noticed he was the one signing their permission slips, or Wakko and Dot had gotten into a fight and their parents weren’t answering the school’s calls.

Except something told Yakko that this wasn’t the same as those usual office calls.

And it wasn’t.

___

It’s time for animaniacs, and we’re zany to the max, so just sit back and relax, you’ll laugh til you collapse, we’re animaniacs...

Yakko woke up in a cold sweat, white knuckling his blanket and clinging to the hope that maybe he wasn’t in the Warner tower.

That was too much to hope for, though.

He didn’t cry. Yakko Warner had never been one for crying.

His parents had always told him he was a quiet baby, and that carried on into adolescence.

Just because he didn’t cry didn’t mean he didn’t feel like a literal piece of crap, though.

It was four am when he woke up, and he didn’t have anything better to do, so he picked up a pen and started writing.

He had written and rewritten that essay a thousand times. He wondered if his parents would have been proud of it, if they hadn’t just gone and died on him. Why did they have to do that?

The lead in his pencil broke as he pressed down to hard and he bit his lip and pulled a new pencil from his pocket.

He starred writing again.

The essay he turned in had gotten a B+. Since then, he had edited it, perfected it. What would it be now? Would it be enough?

Would he be enough?

Maybe he would. But his parents would never be proud of him. That was just a plain and simple fact. Dead people aren’t proud.

They took his childhood away with responsibility and then they left him with nothing but more responsibility.

He had to take care of his siblings. He had to be serious in every way except the ways he wasn’t allowed to be serious.

He had to be serious when it came to his siblings. He had to watch out for them.

But he couldn’t be serious when it came to himself, his fears, his past, his parents.

Hence why essay writing was limited to only during his four am breakdowns.

...Not that he was breaking down. He didn’t break down. He wasn’t serious. He was just... gifted.

If he could erase that word from every dictionary to ever exist, he would.

His eyes burned. His hands cramped and burned. His heart burned. Everything burned.

Except he had burnt out a long time ago. What was there, really, left to burn?


End file.
